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Vegas' Drunken Ramble - Roanoke Island
2 - July 2015, GM: Sam Nicholls, Hunters: Vegas, Cobalt, Charlie, Mattie, Player: Chloe The Master Vampire ...cont... So me and Jackie split up for a little while after that. I don’t know who was more broken up about Louise the waitress but it kinda put a damper on things. I got wind of a hunt all the way over at Roanoke Island investigating some disappearances and left Jackie with a few big notes in a motel somewhere on the edge of Lake Michigan. I barely had to make excuses, I think she was just as glad for the breathing room as I was. I camped out in a motel over the other side of town for a few days before meeting up with a few other hunters to share the driving over to the island. I honestly think that drive was more harrowing than the mission. The hunters I got to share the approximately 100 cubic feet space of admittedly beautifully restored vintage muscle car….a ‘71 Dodge Challenger.... they just don’t make cars with silhouettes like that anymore…. ...I should have bought a better car. Actually, in this interlude. I’ll take a top up, good bartender. You know what they say, the wetter the whistle….the... more you whistle. Anyway, so here I was, packed into the right hook distance of three other hunter - and all of our gear - with Mattie, a “journalist”; Cobalt, the owner of a beautiful car; and my very own nibling Charlie. Charlie’s actually my niece but I call her my nibling because …. you know what? It’ll make sense in a second. You know how some people always need to be chewing gum or cracking their knuckles or something, or they go a little nutty? Charlie has that…..but it’s with raw meat. You barely get 30 miles and then suddenly Charlie’s started chewing the seat belt again and we have to find a butcher, like, five minutes ago. Once, we weren’t near anything when it happened. When we finally stopped, she was out and after a cat that wandered past and we lost a good half hour. So yeah, nibbling - like a sibling, but with more teeth. So we finally arrive at the Port to Roanoke Island. The streets are completely empty - can you even imagine how that felt after ten hours in a car? I almost give up on the hunt right then in favour of a brisk walk. Cobalt starts running about knocking on doors to see if anyone wants to talk to him - I tell you, that man goes about investigating a mystery with all the enthusiasm of an excitable golden retriever puppy, with roughly the same level of success. Meanwhile, I'' stretch my legs over to the Harbourmaster to see what the latest non-news from Roanoke Island was and to look into getting a boat to take us over. And we get not only all that but also an ex-marine Colonel Rogan along as our ''grossly overqualified chauffeur for the trip. We arrive at Dare Habour, which has even more leg room than the last town. And, by that I mean there isn’t anyone here….even the houses are deserted. Meals left half eaten on the table, ovens left on, empty cars strewn across the street with the keys still in. This isn’t a ‘life got too hard so I up and left’ kinda gone - and believe me, I'd recognise that. It looks like people just suddenly vanished. We “acquire” a car not currently wrapped round a tree and start to drive over to the Raleigh on the other side of the island. Partway over, I realise we’re passing through the original Roanoke settlement. You all know the story with Roanoke? The whole settlement just went missing without a trace back in the 1500’s? I figure it’s worth stopping for a second and checking it out given the current situation. Wow, did I end up regretting that. As we walk up, Charlie hulks out into were-bear form to investigate. She leads us over to what looks like the old Town Hall. She hulks down for a second and tells us she can see the old settlement when she’s in bear form and that the Town Hall’s on fire. Then she’s back into bear form, goes to phase through the Town Hall wall and...does not come out the other side… This is why I hate magic, right? Most normal people - most monsters included - if they make the rabbit disappear, you know it’s just hiding in the bottom of the top hat. But with magic… someone goes to walk through a wall, they disappear, the top hat is empty and you’re down one hunter. And then Cobalt tries to run a locating spell on her….and you’re down two hunters. It’s around now that Mattie and I start smelling the smoke too, literally. And seeing flickers of movement out of the corners of our eyes. And then suddenly my blood runs cold, something has gone horribly wrong. So Mattie, you know, the “journalist”? She does some top notch “journalism” and now we’re back in time as well. And everything’s on fire. And there’s a whole bunch of people running around. And there's a woman lying on the ground near a well, dead, with awfully familiar claw marks running down her front. I wish I could say that I can’t recognise my family by each of the unique blood splatter patterns they leave. I find out later that there was a terrifying man with cat eyes reading from a book inside the Town Hall and that she thought the women were focussing a protective circle that was protecting him. So I gotta give her credit for having a plan. At the time it just looked like maybe she'd gone too long without a feeding. And the circle wasn’t protecting him. At this point it doesn’t take a detective to figure that out, I’m pretty sure even the golden retriever is up with the play. And before any of you don’t think to ask….yes, we did accidentally leave the ex-marine back with the car. I go up to one of the women nearby to see how we can help. As I start to talk, the woman reaches out and touches my face - she says she recognises my features and points down to Charlie’s latest scratching post. So…..it turns out I’m related to Eleanor Dare, the mother of the first white child born in America. And that means I can stand in for her in forming the protective circle. The things I do for the fate of this planet. As I understand it, the rest of the group spend the time I spent in the circle trying, alternately, to translate a letter that Eleanor had on her and not die at the hands of the man with the cat eyes. Halfway through the ritual some Native Americans show up and form another protective circle around us. It’s then that we finally get the ritual completed….only to find that Master Kendall, the man with the cat eyes, has disappeared. Sorry, correction, most of Master Kendall has disappeared, Master Kendall’s left hand remains behind - turns out Charlie actually was due for a feeding. Shortly after that, Mattie blips back to the present to check in on Josh Rogan. Which...is unfortunate, cos she was my lift there. I help the townspeople bury Eleanor - I figure it’s only polite given it was my nibling who killed her. They place stones over her grave with latin inscribed in them. We try to convince the coven or the tribe's shaman to help send us back to the present but the coven is so drained it could kill them....and the shaman doesn’t speak english. But it turns out he can speak bear. We make it back to the present with their help to see Josh Rogan fighting Master Kendall. We go in swinging - it’s not often you get a second chance to take on an enemy. But he’s strong and we’re all doing a pretty good impression of a post-bear Eleanor Dare only a few minutes in. Halfway through the fight, Mattie shows up from the paradox she got caught in when she Doctor Who’d her way back alone. And that gives me an idea. Someone opens up another portal to the paradox void Mattie was just in and we force Kendall inside. It’s not particularly elegant, but it works. It’s the hunter equivalent of sweeping the dust under the rug so your mother doesn’t yell at you. Or really, it’s sweeping a demi-god under a rug and not expecting them to come back and smite your ass when they’ve made their way through all the dust you have under there…. The whole day makes me realise how un-messed up my non-blood relatives are so I give Jackie a call letting her know I'm back to Nevada. Cos that's what you're supposed to do when your number is coming up, right? Spend time with people you...want to spend your time with.